Reginald McFadden, paroled this summer from a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison, was indicted yesterday by a New York grand jury on murder, robbery and rape charges in the September death of a 78-year-old Long Island woman.

A former Philadelphian, McFadden, 41, has provided what political experts said was the first hard-and-true issue in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race -- one that could ultimately cost Mark Singel the campaign.

As chairman of the state's Board of Pardons, Singel, the Democratic lieutenant governor, voted in 1992 to recommend that Gov. Robert P. Casey commute McFadden's life sentence, believing the murderer was rehabilitated.

Since McFadden's arrest four weeks ago on unrelated rape and kidnapping charges in New York, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Ridge has latched onto the parolee, believing him to be Singel's Achilles' heel.

And the GOP hasn't let go.

Ridge has targeted the Pardons Board issue in at least five separate televisions ads -- two mentioning McFadden -- in which the GOP asserts "Mark Singel: Bad Judgment. Too Liberal on Crime."

The grand jury indicted McFadden on six counts of second-degree murder, and one count each of robbery, aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, and rape. The six murder counts relate to different subsections of New York state penal codes, including murder in the commission of other felonies.

Returned by the grand jury after it heard testimony over two days, the indictment stem from the Sept. 27 death of Margaret Kierer, a 78-year-old arts aficionado and literacy volunteer from Floral Park, Nassau County.

Kierer's body was discovered near a garage about five blocks from her home. Authorities on Long Island said she had been stabbed six times in the neck area, strangled, raped, robbed and then tossed over a fence.

She was murdered while walking home from the railroad station around midnight after taking in an opera in Manhattan, Nassau County police have said.

McFadden was captured on videotape hours after the murder trying to use Kierer's cards to remove cash from an ATM machine, according to Ed Grilli, a spokesman for Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon.

At 16, McFadden was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1969 suffocation death of a Philadelphia woman.

Prison officials touted McFadden as a model inmate and even the sentencing judge in his case said that he had rehabilitated and was deserving of mercy.

Acting on the recommendation of the pardons board as well as his own review of the case, Casey pardoned McFadden in March. He was released from the Rockview state prison in July after serving 24 years, and was placed under the parole supervision of New York authorities.

As a campaign issue, political analysts have likened McFadden to Willie Horton. Meanwhile, recent polls show Ridge taking a lead in what previously was a too-close-to-call contest.

McFadden also is charged in New York with the September rape and kidnapping of a 55-year-old woman from Rockland County. He was widely considered the prime suspect in Kierer's murder but not until yesterday was he charged with her death.

"This will continue to be an issue, a defining issue between (Singel) and Tom Ridge because it points to the fundamental differences between the two," said Ridge's Press Secretary Ellen Yount. "Tom Ridge believe life means life, while (Singel) voted 122 times to release violent criminals."

Singel voted at least 122 times to release 60 different lifers since taking office nearly eight years ago, pardons board records show. The lieutenant governor has called his decision to vote for McFadden the worst in his career.

Casey somewhat deflected attention from the Pardons Board three weeks ago, saying that the decision to free McFadden was his and his alone. If convicted, McFadden would become the first of 26 lifers released in the Casey administration to kill again.

McFadden could face 42 years to life in prison if convicted in Nassau County, Grilli said. He is expected to be arraigned on the latest set of charges Thursday.